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Nikki Haley said Wednesday that she plans to vote for former President Donald Trump this fall, setting aside her differences with her former boss and presumptive GOP nominee.
Speaking at the Hudson Institute in Washington, Ms. Haley said she is focused on electing a president who will secure the U.S.-Mexican border, support capitalism and freedom, and support the nation’s allies abroad.
“Trump has not been perfect on these policies. I’ve made that clear many, many times,” Ms. Haley said. “But Biden has been a catastrophe.”
“So I will be voting for Trump. Having said that, I stand by what I said in my suspension speech,” she said. “Trump would be smart to reach out to the millions of people who vote for me and continue to support me and not assume they are just going to be with him.”
Ms. Haley, who served as U.S. ambassador to the U.N. and governor of South Carolina, has been coy about her plans after an at times vicious Republican primary battle in which Mr. Trump nicknamed her “birdbrain” and she warned he was too polarizing to defeat Mr. Biden.
Ms. Haley emerged as the strongest alternative to Mr. Trump in the GOP nomination battle. She won over a lot of moderate Republicans, independents and voters who remain supportive of the U.S. sending more assistance to Ukraine.
But she failed to trip up Mr. Trump in the early primary states, including in her home state of South Carolina, which doomed her campaign.
Ms. Haley stuck in the race through Super Tuesday before pulling the plug on her bid.
She did not endorse Mr. Trump at the time. Instead, she said Mr. Trump had to earn the support of the primary voters who preferred her over him
“It is now up to Donald Trump to earn the votes of those in our party and beyond it who did not support him, and I hope he does that,” Ms. Haley said at the time. “At its best, politics is about bringing people into your cause, not turning them away. And our conservative cause badly needs more people. This is now his time for choosing.”
Ms. Haley’s decision puts her in line with the rest of Mr. Trump’s primary rivals — with the notable exception of former Vice President Mike Pence, who a couple of months ago said he “will not be endorsing Donald Trump this year.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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